The Dateline report and related articles can be found here:
http://www.sbs.com.au/dateline/story/about/id/600497/n/Primate-Change
Folliowing the broadcast of this story on the
BBC's Panorama, palm oil manufacturer Duta
Palma issued the following statement...
We are a
group of palm oil plantation companies that has been established and
operated since 1987 under Indonesian laws. We have at all times tried to
obey/comply with all applicable laws and regulations.
Duta
Palma and its subsidiaries have already obtained all required
authorisations for a plantation company.
To date, we have not
received any complaints or reminders from the authorities relating to
the above authorisation, as we are to believe that we have complied with
all such applicable regulations.
As a palm oil plantation
company, may we confirm that we have never done such illegal logging as
meant by BBC. If there is the activity of cutting trees, which have
economic value, it can be confirmed that such was done by another party
or even possibly by local people beyond our control. Duta Palma and its
subsidiaries have never done an illegal act or business.
For
your information, previously the land was owned by several companies
before we acquired it, the purpose of the land is as a plantation but
they didn't do it properly. By the time we opened the oil palm
plantation there was no forest any more, therefore, no more High
Conservation Value Forest in that area.
We realise that the
structure and condition of land in Kalimantan, some of them are peat
lands, but we would never opened palm oil plantation on peat land with 3
meters depth, since it is not feasible to be planted and economically
damaging to us. The plantation land that we have opened is on the peat
land with average only 0.5 - 1 meters depth.
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